Creston wrote on Nov 3, 2011, 17:35:Erm, you made the DECISION to go into that battle while having knowingly compromised your Augs.

Edit : Jerykk already said the same thing. Ah well.

Creston

More DX:HR spoiles ahoy:

Yes, guys, I expected bad things. It was a "I want to see what happens decision" (same with sneaking out while Malik was under attack). The problem was I should have done it on a "run and gun" playthrough, so I might have had some upgraded weapons and whatnot. Or saved right before.

So while I was asking for it, I still don't like that once I hit the boss I had to play it like a lousy FPS. I did hack a turret and take it in there, which felt like a Deus-Exey decision, but overall the fight was much less fun than the vast majority of the game.

I remember playing Bard's tale on my C64 when I was 15 and had so much free time. I wish I could replay it but I'm just too spoiled with today's graphics and interfaces...

I actually replayed it semi-recently, it doesn't take too long. Well, unless you start over and hand-map everything... Again.

I probably still have my hand-drawn maps in a shoebox somewhere. The levels that were just mazes that repeated if you went out one side of the square were such a PITA. Still, so many fond memories of that game.

It looks like the DRM for this will be "a one-time activation on install, NO always-on DRM." However I also hear murmurs of "players who are online will get bonus incentives" which sounds like Heroes VI's essentially always-on DRM.

Your move, Ubi. Will this be the, geeze, fifth game of yours I didn't buy because of your DRM, or will you wise up?

Jerykk wrote on Nov 2, 2011, 18:01:To be fair, you were being punished for not paying attention to details. If you read all the e-mails, PDAs, etc, you wouldn't have chosen to have your augs "repaired" and you wouldn't have been handicapped during that fight.

Oh absolutely. Much of my rage was because I didn't think to save before that decision. I still wish the boss fights had felt more DX-like.

My favorite game of the year, maybe tied with Portal 2. I hope they're working on a sequel, and that they don't mess with the formula too much!

I started the game a little later than most, so I knew from other gamers to pick up Typhoon to get past the boss fights.

So imagine how PSYCHED I was when I got to Namir and [spoiler] had no augs. That fight made me so angry. Reload, die, reload, die, reload, die, reload. So incredibly unfun, and in such stark contrast to the awesomeness of the rest of the game.

I finally carried a hacked turret into the room and lowered the difficulty to easy just to get past that fight. But WOW was that a massive blemish on the game. The first boss was pretty embarrassing, too. Just so badly written and designed.

My other complaint is the ridiculous head bobbing. WHY is that a trend nowadays? "Let's make a really awesome city that the character can explore. Now let's make the city go bouncy bouncy bouncy the entire time you're walking around so you can't focus on anything! And let's make sure we don't put in an option to turn it off!" Fortunately at maximum FOV it's bearable.

Ozmodan wrote on Nov 1, 2011, 11:07:The publishers are losing a lot of purchases with always on DRM. No matter how good the game I will not purchase one and there are a lot of people like me.

I'm the same way. I didn't buy HoMM VI even though I love the series, and I won't buy Diablo III. Like you say, there are enough good games that I can skip the DRM'd ones and still have plenty of fun stuff to play.

I do buy a lot of games on Steam, though, but offline mode is the key there.

It's interesting that so many people in this thread will see racist comments as a bad idea, but don't extend the same attitude toward homophobic comments. Many of the posters here just can't fathom that "gay" and "fag" are as awful as racial slurs in the minds of many, many people. The fact that events like this get so much attention and upset so many people is mystifying to them, yet if we were talking about a company showing a video with racist ranting, there would be far less outrage at the outrage.

I take this as evidence that being homophobic is becoming as socially uncool as being a racist. Society is certainly changing in that direction: as I've lived I've watched support for gay marriage increase steadily over the past couple decades to where it is now with over 50% of the population supporting it. It's pretty clear where history is going, but it's an ugly ride. It's not an easy thing for privileged people to watch another group getting respect and rights: as I mentioned before they see it as a zero-sum game. And eventually they'll look as silly ranting about this as someone in the '60s did ranting about "reverse discrimination" because black people could now actually compete with them for jobs.

My advice? Don't get attached to the usernames y'all are posting with. My stupid posts from 15 years ago are still out there on the internet and searchable if you know my old usernames. They're like a tell tale heart, always reminding me of the entitled little dick I used to be.

Hump wrote on Oct 28, 2011, 21:58:Read your quote and think about it. It would have been career SUICIDE if he DIDN'T do what was asked of him by GLAAD. Period. Was a gun put to his head? No. But thats about as complimentary as one can get about his situation. He had a burgeoning career, a family to support, etc. Its fucking extortion and you damn well know it. GLAAD and the rest of the Gay community know very well that Morgan wasn't being "hateful" or any other tag you wish to put on it. The media is SO frightened of appearing homophobic, racist that they will pander to special interest groups who look for a badge of victimization in order to legitimize their own agendas. It's disgusting and its dishonest.

Ah, well, I think we just have an irreconcilable difference of opinion. Yes it would have been career suicide to not apologize, but I put the blame squarely on Morgan. He was the idiot who said what he did. Whereas it seems like you put the blame on everyone but Morgan for daring to inflict some social consequence.

Hump wrote on Oct 28, 2011, 19:54:Its unfortunate that people have to grovel and beg forgiveness lest they get taken down by organizations like GLAAD. They will force an apology (Tracey Morgan is a good example) whether the apology is sincere or not. In Morgans case he had to do an apology tour, do events and generally say what the GLAAD puppetmasters told him to say.

Tracey Morgan did not HAVE to go on an apology tour. Nobody HAS to grovel and beg forgiveness. Morhaime did not HAVE to write a letter of apology. In both cases they decided is was professionally expedient to do so.

Morgan could have continued to say the things he said. Would he have lost popularity, and been booted from NBC? Very likely, but it's not some GLAAD-led liberal thought policing politically correct illuminati conspiracy like so many in this thread make it out to be. When one says something a jerk would say, others are going to think that person is a jerk (or maybe not want to be around them or consume their products if they represent a company). That's all there is to it.

And no, Hump, we're not going to erase homophobia in a single generation. And yes, Prez, there is chaos and hatred just under the surface of modern society (and it's freaky!). But I don't think these facts mean we should just give up and be psychopaths.

No. Just, no. Hatred is an inherent part of the human condition. As instinctive as breathing.

I'm not sure I'd agree that humans are inherently hateful. But let's say you're right. There are a lot of things that are part of the human condition that we have learned to suppress or overcome in the interest of civilization. Why can't hatred be one of them?

For those of you, like Eldaron, who complain that gay people need thicker skin or "more balls" to deal with slurs, I wonder how much of your thick skin isn't so much thick as untested. I submit that it takes WAY more "balls" to live in this world as a non-white or non-straight or non-male person than most of us white dudes will ever have. It also takes "balls" to stand up for yourself when you know you'll get shouted down, as the gay community did here.

As a white dude in this society it's so easy to look around and say "well, none of this affects ME, so it must not be a problem." I'm just as guilty of this as y'all, or at least I was. I too used to get on message boards (or usenet pre-1993 - yes I'm old) and explain to everyone at length how they were wrong, how they had no right to be offended. "I'm a white man who will never face your problems, so let me tell you how you should deal with them." I hope I never said anything as hopelessly privileged as "black people don't have to deal with racism anymore," but I wouldn't put it past my early-20s-self.

As the years went by I started to realize just how privileged and ignorant I was. The truth is we straight white cis-gendered dudes will NEVER have to put up with what gay people, black people, women, etc. deal with on a daily basis. I also realized a little empathy toward my fellow man isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It's not like one group getting treated better means my group gets treated worse. It's not a zero-sum game. A rising tide lifts ALL boats. It doesn't affect me directly if gay people get some respect, but I care because maybe it'll be important for my son, grandchildren, students, etc.

On a different tack, I definitely agree with those of you who say that Morhaime is likely not very sincere. This is a company who allowed their lead designer to keep his handle "Tigole" as in "Tigole Bitties" in a professional setting, and that chose to run that video in the first place. But at least the apology wasn't a half-assed "I'm sorry you're so thin-skinned" kind of non-apology that is all too common in the internet world.

I'm waiting to see how the DRM affects this. If they'd just left well enough alone it'd be an insta-buy. Now it's a maybe, and if something else distracts me, Ubi will have lost yet another sale due to DRM idiocy.

Jonny wrote on Sep 8, 2011, 20:30:I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not, but there are a lot of places in the world where politeness is culturally engrained and casually calling someone a whore would be unheard of.

Maybe my ancestry is from one of those places. I do think that "feminist whore" is a phrase that just needn't be said. Obviously many in this thread disagree. But if you're going to say it, be able to accept that you're going to look like a jerk and get some social pushback, and don't cry and moan that your rights are getting squashed and PC-ness is ruining your life if people take offense.

Free speech? Good stuff, certainly. But we're talking about calling women whores. Is that really where you want to be seen making your big stand? Judging by this thread and the Kotaku one, it seems like calling women whores is really important to a lot of guys. That's not a good look.

I was playing TF2 today and there was a woman on the server. As soon as she spoke, a few other players lit up their mics with rude comments. They probably thought they were "jokes." In my opinion (this is my engrained politeness ancestry again) they should keep that stuff to themselves if they can't be nice. But the worst was when she called them on their jerkitude. It was this thread all over again: "waah waah, it's PC-ness run amok, can't say anything anymore, it's free speech, you can't be offended because I'm not, etc." This is why we can't have nice things, and I wish we could have nice things.

Prez wrote on Sep 8, 2011, 18:54:With all due respect to YOU, sir, I will inform you that your assumptions about me are categorically incorrect. Rather than imposing your strict, narrow-minded perception of how certain people of a certain stature MUST conform to a certain way of thinking, you could have simply asked. Hell, you don't even know that I am NOT a woman, or black, or gay, yet, you draw assumption based on the tiny interaction we have had here. So who is being "prejudicial"?

You're absolutely right that I assumed a lot about you, and I'm sorry if I got it wrong. (For the record I'm cis/white/male.) I doubted that someone who truly believes the pendulum has swung far away from racism/sexism, or someone who would throw around some of the words you did, or someone who would spend all that text telling me why I had no right to be offended by the subject of the OP; could also be someone who actually deals with what women, gay people, etc. deal with in their daily lives. I apologize if I drew the wrong conclusions. Hey, you play a Les Paul, you can't be all bad.

But please don't let my possibly bad assumption about Prez diminish the rest of my point: I see a ton of "aw, it doesn't bug *me*, so everyone should just shut up about it" type comments in these threads. The amount of anger and defensiveness makes it sound as though being asked not to use phrases like "feminist whore" is some kind of gargantuan sacrifice. It's really just basic decency.

Which takes me back to my first post: I'd really like it if the girls and women in my life felt comfortable gaming with me, but the fact that so few dudes stand up to say "hey, man, 'feminist whore' might not be cool," and the fact that the few who do are instantly derided by the "you have no right to be offended!" crowd... yeah, I'd stay away too.

Prez wrote on Sep 8, 2011, 17:22:Seeing the words whore, faggot, or any racial epithets don't offend me in the slightest, but seeing how otherwise rational adults seemingly lose all rationality and reason over simple words does.

Prez, with all due respect, the fact that none of those words offends you probably has a lot to do with your privilege. You have the privilege of not being offended by those words because, I'm guessing here, none of them can be applied to you.

Instead of explaining to all of us how we're oversensitive and all the reasons we shouldn't let words get to us, and on and on, maybe you could just realize not everyone sees the world the way you do, and that's OK? Maybe when people say "hey man that's offensive," you could just say sorry instead of writing a wall of text at them explaining why they don't have the right to be offended? I mean, really, is it so oppressive to be asked to not call women whores or use the other words you used?

Oh, and to say that the pendulum has swung away from sexism and racism is another huge indicator of your privilege. You might want to talk to the black people or women in your lives, and really listen. You might discover some stuff.

Yes, it was one jerk who made the original ugly statement. That's disappointing and not cool. But you know what's REALLY disappointing and not cool? The fact that most of the comments here and at Kotaku are defensive and angry at the fact that, OMG, the jerk got called out on his jerkishness! As if the world would be a horrible place if people who were mean to women actually suffered a little social blowback.

I like women. I like gaming. I'd really like it if those two likes could go together more often. I think gaming would be way awesomer if the other 50% of humanity (yes, they are humans, not some mysterious monolithic sex object alien race) felt comfortable gaming.

But crap like this is exactly the reason that doesn't happen much. Yes, this was "only a joke," yes it was only one guy. But look around at the reaction and the fact that this attitude permeates gaming culture (or maybe ALL of culture, as Creston points out, which still doesn't make it right). Why would any woman want to hang around with guys who won't even stand up and say "dude, that's not cool" when someone tosses around epithets like "feminist whore?"

When V was released many people complained about the lousy AI. Did that ever get addressed? I sunk many an hour into Civ IV, but the middling reviews on release kept me from trying Civ V. Maybe it's time?